Starting with EPuB, 4 questions (to start out with).

[crankypants]

Hi, I just got my software to make an EPUB file from MultiMarkdown working.

1a- What's the difference between encoding in UTF-8 and UTF-16 (or UTF-32)?

Not sure, but you need to write XHTML files in UTF-8 to get German and other accented characters working. Here's my first few lines from OEBPS/content.opf:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?>
<package xmlns="http://www.idpf.org/2007/opf" unique-identifier="BookId" version="2.0">
  <metadata xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:opf="http://www.idpf.org/2007/opf">

1b- And are there benefits going off the UTF-8 format?

Yes, displaying accented characters properly.

1c- I've seen books omit the encoding type in the container.xml. Recommendable, or not?

I don't know. I always include the encoding type, more info is better, and also it's not worth it to read 8 hrs of documentation to find the answer.

2- I've read, but want to confirm, if ZIP is the only compression format allowed? 7z, or RAR would not work, correct?

Yes, ZIP is the ONLY format allowed. If you want to see what's inside an EPUB, copy filename.epub to filename.zip, and look inside.

3- If ZIP is, then what parameters should I use? I know at times it is possible to increase compression in some programs, and wondered if it would affect my ebook reader, in trying to open the file?

You need to add the mimetype file first, no compression. Then in a second command line, add the rest of the files. Get zip from www.info-zip.org. It's what I use. Here are the 2 command lines I use to make an epub:

zip  -X0 filename.epub mimetype
zip -r filename.epub OEBPS/content.opf OEBPS/images/*.* OEBPS/styles/*.* OEBPS/Text/*.* OEBPS/toc.ncx META-INF/container.xml

-X0 does not compress mimetype.

Be careful of case! Case matters here!

4- A few years ago, I remember someone posting a link, to a program where mimetype was fused in a zip container (without it being compressed as well).
The program also claimed it compressed far better than Winzip, because it solely focused on text and picture compression, not audio or video, and thus was able to get higher compression ratios.
Which program was this?

Sounds like it doesn't create zip files then. There have been some programs that compress better than ZIP, like bzip and 7zip (for the .7z file). See the Archive Comparison Test at http://compression.ca/. It has every known compression program.

5- What program would you think is best to use to generate an .epub file, knowing that all other files are sorted and available? (meaning mimetype, META-INF folder, and the OEBPS folder are complete)?

Probably Sigil for an authoring program. I've used Calibre too but I just liked Sigil better. I don't think Calibre has regex replace while Sigil does. I was using Sigil to copy and paste plain text into Sigil, until I got curious enough to write my own EPUB creator which takes MultiMarkdown as input.

Or, if you meant a zip creator, info-zip. It's command line can be embedded in almost any language, I happen to use Perl.

[crankypants]

I'll answer your other questions too. I'm grateful for the help of the others here and I want to pay it forward.

1- Epub supports jpg, any other?

Only JPG and PNG. This is limited by the EPUB spec itself, not by technology or copyrights. GIF copyright is owned by Compuserve I think. If you use GIF, you gotta pay them.

2- Epub supports .ttf fonts, and I wondered if it does any other?

I don't know. But be careful, not every ereader will support fonts in the EPUB. Most ereaders only support the really basic stuff like bold, italic, and underline, so stick with that.

3- in container.xml there's the option to add: "standalone="no"". What does this mean?

Don't know.

4- Before the rootfile lines in container.xml there are tabs, or spaces, and I wonder if it would pose any problems omitting them to reading devices?

For a properly programmed device, no it doesn't matter. The spaces/tabs are for human eyes, not for computers. However, I'm not claiming all ereaders are properly programmed. Buyer beware.

[ProDigit]

Thank you,
Most questions where answered already though, I know I've spent a few hours a day studying it, and learned a lot in the past week!

To address some things you mentioned, and for others reading this thread:
I gathered that unless you use special characters in the alphabet, like the Germans, French, Spanish,
Languages like Dutch and English, and perhaps a few more, are best off with iso-8859-1.
It's smaller, and more appropriate.
99% of this forum's English posts benefit from iso-8859-1, and don't need UTF-8.

The encoding type can be omitted in container.xml, since it doesn't have any textual data to display on the screen. The books that have omitted this data, did have it present in their chapter.html/xml files.

The better zip encoding was kzip, now succeeded by another encoding. It was optimized for text and images.

I've also used sigil to create my ebook's main files, simply because of the unique identifier it supplies you with. There is no easier way to get one, when manually compiling a book.
Not fond of calibre either.

The spaces in container.xml can be omitted.
I've seen some books omit /r/n data as well (enters), making the file one long line of unstructured data.
I'm not sure I'd want to go that far...

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by crankypants

Only JPG and PNG. This is limited by the EPUB spec itself, not by technology or copyrights. GIF copyright is owned by Compuserve I think. If you use GIF, you gotta pay them.

Not true. GIF is supported, as well as SVG for a large part. In the specs it is specified what part of SVG is not supported. In general the animation part.

Originally Posted by crankypants

I don't know. But be careful, not every ereader will support fonts in the EPUB. Most ereaders only support the really basic stuff like bold, italic, and underline, so stick with that.

Both ttf and otf are supported. However, be sure to check the font on a reader (or ADE 1.7/2.0) first. Some do not work.

Originally Posted by ProDigit

To address some things you mentioned, and for others reading this thread:
I gathered that unless you use special characters in the alphabet, like the Germans, French, Spanish,
Languages like Dutch and English, and perhaps a few more, are best off with iso-8859-1.
It's smaller, and more appropriate.
99% of this forum's English posts benefit from iso-8859-1, and don't need UTF-8.

You will be better of in using UTF-8. Remember, it is not only specifying it in the XHTML, but also the file must be saved in that format. Officially for ePUB either UTF-8 or UTF-16 is required. If you save a file in UTF-8 or in iso-8859-1, the size will not be a lot different. That will change if you add eastern languages.
Even if the characters you use are in the iso-8859-1 codepage, it may still render incorrectly on a reader. Just use UTF-8 and store the file in UTF-8 and you will be fine.

If you want, I have created a program where you need to specify your container.xml file and it will create the ePUB for you. You can choose to let it only add files specified in the opf or all files in the directories. There is no validation or checking, just simple creation.

[ProDigit]

My impression was that almost all of the base iso-8859-1 characters display exactly the same as the utf-8 ones.
The alphabet, numbers, spaces, basic punctuation....
I've seen books on sale in the store, where publishers use the iso-8859-1 format, so I presume that utf-8 or utf-16 isn't a requirement, but iso-8859-1 is also a valid option...

I mean, I would want to make a distinction between encoding 'preferences' and 'requirements'. Requirements mean that unless it's not there, the book will error or not display on an ebook reading device.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by crankypants

Probably Sigil for an authoring program. I've used Calibre too but I just liked Sigil better. I don't think Calibre has regex replace while Sigil does. I was using Sigil to copy and paste plain text into Sigil, until I got curious enough to write my own EPUB creator which takes MultiMarkdown as input.

Actually, calibre's EPUB/AZW3 editor does support S&R with full regex support. In fact, you can also use arbitrary python functions to create the replacement text.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by ProDigit

I've also used sigil to create my ebook's main files, simply because of the unique identifier it supplies you with. There is no easier way to get one, when manually compiling a book.
Not fond of calibre either.

As a matter of curiosity, why not?
By the way, calibre also creates a UUID for you. I imagine any actual EPUB editor, would, unlike Notepad++ and zip.exe

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by ProDigit

My impression was that almost all of the base iso-8859-1 characters display exactly the same as the utf-8 ones.
The alphabet, numbers, spaces, basic punctuation....
I've seen books on sale in the store, where publishers use the iso-8859-1 format, so I presume that utf-8 or utf-16 isn't a requirement, but iso-8859-1 is also a valid option...

I mean, I would want to make a distinction between encoding 'preferences' and 'requirements'. Requirements mean that unless it's not there, the book will error or not display on an ebook reading device.

Then those books are wrong. Unicode is required and will not cost you additional space. Further more, codepages are a thing of the past that should only be used with a lot of caution. Faults in books will not always cause an error or non-display in reading devices, but you will never be sure. It might work, it might not work. Really, use UTF-8 and you will only profit from it.

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by crankypants

Only JPG and PNG. This is limited by the EPUB spec itself, not by technology or copyrights.

You could theoretically embed pretty much any media type as long as you include a fallback declaration.

This rarely makes sense, though, because there's no point in embedding a media type that the ebook app can't properly render.

However, if you target iBooks, ADE 4 and Gitden Reader users, you could for example, embed a .pdf file.

[Notjohn]

Originally Posted by crankypants

I don't know. I always include the encoding type, more info is better, and also it's not worth it to read 8 hrs of documentation to find the answer.

I am going to add that to my list of Life Guides, formatted in the form of Post It notes stuck to my computer monitor.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by ProDigit

My impression was that almost all of the base iso-8859-1 characters display exactly the same as the utf-8 ones.
The alphabet, numbers, spaces, basic punctuation....
I've seen books on sale in the store, where publishers use the iso-8859-1 format, so I presume that utf-8 or utf-16 isn't a requirement, but iso-8859-1 is also a valid option...

I mean, I would want to make a distinction between encoding 'preferences' and 'requirements'. Requirements mean that unless it's not there, the book will error or not display on an ebook reading device.

Actually UTF is a requirement of the standard but as you say UTF-8 is a superset of some other older standards. The font set is set to whatever the eBook reader has loaded but the standard is still UTF.

By the way, the patents ran out on GIF some time ago. It is perfectly acceptable in ePub. No payments required.

Dale

Dale

[ProDigit]

Interesting... UTF is a requirement of EPuB2, EPuB3 or all versions of EPuB?

The problem with GIF is animated gif.. The first step towards ads on an ebook .

[eschwartz]

What do you have against APNG?

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by ProDigit

Interesting... UTF is a requirement of EPuB2, EPuB3 or all versions of EPuB?

The problem with GIF is animated gif.. The first step towards ads on an ebook .

All versions of ePUB require UTF. It is not that strange, it was made/developed with universal support in mind. Nobody in their right mind makes webpages or programs without UTF support. It brings too many issues with support. I have seen so many issues with codepages in the past in my work (non-ePUB), I really don't understand why people would not want to use UTF-8.
The impact on size and performance is almost non-existent for Latin-1 and Latin-2 codepages.

Of course is animated gif not supported for e-readers since the e-ink screens would not be able to handle that. That being said, I would not be surprised if reading application on pc/tablets/etc would support that since they usually work with webkit.

[ProDigit]

The e-ink screens definitely support animated gifs, especially lower framerate ones. Perhaps the operating systems of the devices don't.

But since there is no animation in paper books, I don't see it coming in ereaders either...
Although, I don't think it impossible in the future, free ebooks being sponsored by ads, and animated ones too!